Like most Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast, Ard Aven Kozono and his family followed evacuation orders and were relocated to Tule Lake Detention Camp. After spending one year in camp, Kozono headed for Washington, D.C., and was redrafted for the Army in mid-1944. Kozono was recruited for the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) at Fort Snelling and eventually graduated from the language school in August 1945. Subsequently, he was sent to Manila, Philippines, to join the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS). 
<br><br>Kozono led a group of MIS linguists to take part in interrogation work at the Luzon Prisoner of War (LUPOW) Camp #1, where thousands of Japanese prisoners were incarcerated. As members of the LUPOW team, their job was to register, interrogate, and process all of the prisoners so that they could return home as quickly as possible. Working at the camp of approximately 80,000 people proved to be a daunting task. Many of the prisoners had been fighting since the beginning of the war and were beyond exhaustion. According to another LUPOW member, all of the prisoners suffered from malnutrition and many were either sick or wounded. Luzon prisoners included not only Japanese soldiers but also Korean laborers, nurses, children, and "comfort women."
<br><br>The military police stationed at this camp had taken under their wing two Chinese boys nicknamed T-Bone and Wish Bone. As "honorary members" of the detachments, the boys donned uniforms cut to their size and ran errands for the MPs and the MIS linguists. Even after decades had passed, the U.S. veterans kept in touch with the Chinese boys from their wartime past. As Wish Bone expressed in his letter to one of the MIS men, some 40 years after their friendship had begun, he could never forget the kindness and generosity of the "yankee soldiers," and hoped that one day they may all reunite.
<br><br>At the Luzon camp, one of Kozono's assignments led him to personal contact with Japanese General Masaharu Homma, commander of the Japanese forces in Bataan and Corregidor. While the captured Homma and General Tomoyuki Yamashita waited for their execution sentences, Kozono was ordered to Homma's prison cell to interview and process him.
<br><br>Kozono was discharged on August 6, 1946.
<br><br><br><br>